Raymond Benson - High Time To Kill

He plowed ahead, barely able to see even through his goggles. There was a dark shape ahead, and it was moving toward him. It was a person. Chandra moved closer until they were face-to-face. He recognized Roland Marquis.

Chandra started to speak but saw that Marquis was pointing a pistol at him. He reacted quickly, turning away just as the weapon flashed. The bullet caught Chandra in the shoulder and spun him around. He fell to the snow and lay still. Marquis looked around to make sure he wasn’t seen, but everyone was safely in tents. The gunshot was muffled by the intense sound of the wind.

Chandra felt the cold snow on his face and opened his eyes. He could just see Marquis’s silhouette turn and walk away from the campsite. The Gurkha managed to pull himself off the ground. His quick defensive move and the thick layers of clothing had luckily helped to deflect the bullet so that it hadn’t entered his chest. Nevertheless, he was in an immense amount of pain. Chandra breathed deeply from his respirator, savoring the oxygen contained in the canister on his back, then began to follow Marquis.

“Wake up, damn you!”

The slaps came hard and fast on his face. Bond’s vision was blurred and his head was pounding. Someone was crouched over him, and the voice was decidedly feminine.

“James? Wake up!”

He groaned, felt a rush of nausea, then rolled to his side and stopped himself from vomiting. After a moment he turned on his back and looked up at Hope Kendall, who began to wipe his face and forehead with a cloth.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You were out cold. You have a nasty bump on the back of your head. Answer me!”

Bond nodded. “I think I’m okay.”

“Can you sit up?”

He did so, slowly. His hand went to his head and felt a lump there.

“I was afraid you were dead. Everyone else is!” she said. He realized there was pure terror in her voice.

“What did you say?” She was terribly upset and in tears.

“Everyone—Philippe, Tom Barlow, Paul Baack, the sirdar —well, I can’t find everyone, but there are six people dead up here. James, they’ve been murdered! Their throats were cut! And look at him—” She pointed at the body of Otto Schrenk. “He’s been shot in the head!”

The news brought Bond out of the fog. The years of experience and living on the edge had long ago honed his ability to shake away pain and discomfort and focus on the matter at hand.

“Who’s missing?” he asked.

“Roland, Carl Glass . . . I’m not sure who else, I’m not thinking straight,” she said.

“What about Chandra?”

“I haven’t seen him, either.”

The storm was still raging outside. Bond peered outside the tent. It was night, and there was absolutely no visibility. He turned back and surveyed the scene in the tent. Lee’s body lay where he had left it. Schrenk was crumpled up next to him. The Nazi dagger was lying by his side. There was a bullet hole in the tent.

“I think I know what happened,” he said. “Schrenk. He hit me with something from outside the tent. He got the pacemaker.”

“The what?”

“Something I need,” he said. “He got it but was shot by someone else. Whoever shot him took the pacemaker.”

“What pacemaker? What are you talking about?” she asked.

He pointed to Lee’s body. She lifted the bit of clothing covering his chest and recoiled.

“Christ,” she said. “Someone dug a pacemaker out of this guy?”

“Yes, I did. That was my whole purpose for being on this expedition. You might as well know. Some classified military information was hidden inside it. I have to return it to England. Come on, let’s make some more room in here. Help me get rid of these bodies.”

He began to drag Schrenk’s corpse toward the opening. She got hold of the legs and helped push the cadaver out into the snow. They did the same with Lee, making the tent comfortable enough for two people.

“We’re going to have to wait until morning,” Bond said. “The storm is too severe to go out. At least we can stretch out now.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What was in this pacemaker?”

“Military secrets. The entire reason this expedition was put together was for me to retrieve them.”

“You mean—this whole thing, I mean, this ‘salvage operation — was just a cover story?”

He nodded.

She sat back and folded her arms. “You son of a bitch,” she said. “Why the hell am I here? I’m lucky I’m not dead, too! You mean to tell me that you risked the lives of all these climbers and Sherpas just so your government could get hold of these so-called secrets? Are you out of your mind?”

“Look, Hope,” he said. “I’m a civil servant. I do what I’m told. I’ve always thought it was a crazy, almost suicidal mission. Sometimes I’m ordered to do some very unpleasant things. Often there are other lives at stake. I’m sorry you got involved.”

She was flabbergasted and, Bond thought, possibly in shock. She sat there, shivering, despite the layers of clothing she had on.

“Now tell me about the dead people,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”

She took some breaths from her oxygen canister, coughed, then began the story.

“After you and the others brought back the body of that guy from the plane, Roland told us all to get into our tents, use a tank of oxygen and try to sleep through the storm. So that’s what I did, except I didn’t go to my own tent. I went to the supply tent, where I had set up medical HQ. I got into the bedroll there, mainly because it was warmer in there with all that stuff than my own tent. I think I got about two hours of sleep, but I woke up restless. I decided to go out and grope my way to Roland’s tent. I found it empty”

“Who was he sharing the tent with?”

“Carl Glass. He was gone.”

“Go on.”

“I then went over to Philippe and Tom’s tent, and that’s where I found them. They were both dead, their throats cut. I don’t know, I guess I panicked. I went to the next tent, the Sherpas’, and found them dead, too. Same thing, throats cut. All of them. Paul Baack was lying in his tent covered by that parka of his . . . blood all over the place. Then I came here and found you. I thought you’d been killed, too, until I examined you. You have a slight nick on your neck, there’s dried blood there. Then I noticed the bump on your head.”

“It’s a good thing you weren’t in your own tent,” Bond said. “You might be dead now, too. Have you tried reaching anyone by phone?”

“Yes, and it’s impossible to make a connection in this storm. All I get is static on all channels.”

Bond considered the story. Had Schrenk committed the murders? He examined the Nazi dagger and saw that there was dried blood on it. Schrenk had most likely been in the act of slitting his throat when he was shot, but by whom? Could it have been Marquis? Was Marquis working against all of them? If so, which of them was Union? And if one was Union, whom was the other working for?

He then noticed his own mobile phone lying in the corner of the tent, still switched on. He picked it up, made sure it was working, dialed Chandra’s number. A message appeared on the digital display that read “No Connection.

“I told you that you’ll never get anything in this weather,” Hope said.

“I had to try,” Bond said. He put it away and closed his eyes. His head was throbbing.

“How important is that thing you’re after?” she asked.

“Important enough for it to be essential to keep it from the wrong hands. It contains technology that could upset the balance of power.”

“War stuff,” she said.

“I suppose.” There was silence for several long moments.